As the pilot project of its IN PLACE initiative, Null Point presents the overdue world premiere of PLACE, an extended interactive performance created by pioneering composer David Dunn. The performance will utilize voices, instruments, electronics, bodies, and materials found on site to build a musical language in dialogue with a particular place’s soundscape, ecosystem, and topography. In PLACE, electronics record and play back ambient sounds, voices and instruments trigger acoustic resonances in the local environment, instruments imitate ambient sounds in real time, and materials found on site sonically activate instruments in structured improvisations. These techniques blur distinctions between music and its surrounding environment, reimagining the very nature of music, and challenging divisions between nature and culture. The project will be presented at two iconic locations across the Buffalo-Niagara region; due to the work’s interactive, site-responsive nature, each performance will unfold in a distinct way.

The performance will unfold over seven hours from early afternoon to sundown; audience members will be free to come and go throughout the event. Experience the performance in your own way: immerse yourself in the site and its sounds, have a picnic, meander around the site, bring a chair and relax, or whatever strikes your fancy.

Audience members are invited to participate in the performances, making sounds with materials found on site, beginning around 7:15pm (Silo City) and 8:15 (Artpark). No instruments or prior musical experience required.

The composer has this to say about the performance: “I am truly grateful to all of the organizers and performers who are responsible for making this event possible. They have brought an enthusiasm and sense of purpose to the task that exceeds anything I could have imagined when I originally wrote the piece.” Read more in his essay about our premiere performance of his piece.

This program is funded by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; administered by Arts Services Initiative of Western New York.